Top 4 vintage lenses

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

George, I'd advise you not to mount lenses with fungus to your camera or mix with other good lenses in same bag, because it can sometimes spread to other lenses.
Regarding the Pentacon 135mm f/2.8, when it has clean glass, it is a decent lens and I used to use one for badger photography with an LLC camera many years ago. The Pentax SMC-M I found a far better optic than the old Pentacon and well worth looking out for.

[George Pada]

Hey, this thread went completely quiet!
Any news?

I'm putting together a few shots that I got w/ my helios 44m-4 and nikkor 24mm f2 on the 60d.
I'll post it in a few days...

[George Pada]

Ok this is a good low light example...
Shot with 60D + Nikkor 24mm f2 + Helios 44m-4 58mm f2 + Zenitar 16mm f2.8 fisheye.

Party @Senso - 20.2.2011 on Vimeo

[Kren Barnes]

That is very cool George.. i've also added MF lenses with our newer lenses
Nikon 50 1.4
Helios 44 58mm 2.0
Vivitar Series 1 70-210 3.5 (67mm Kiron version)
Hanimar 135/3.5 & 28/2.8
Pentacon 55/1.8
Super Takumar 105mm f/2.8

As for the video..What was your ISO setting? Is this footage pretty much raw? any post color correction?
Cannot wait for my adapters to come so i can try out these babies :)


Kren
Vertical Video Works* Winnipeg Videography

[George Pada]

Kren,
For iso settings I just used a general rule: Stay low! But my average setting was 2500. I know that was not the best way to go but I did anyway...
I also did a little bit of color grading inside my editing app in order to give it some "personality".

Hope you'll enjoy your new babies...
Cheers

[Simon Larcher]

Hello (My account was finally activated !)
I bought my T2i body one month ago and before puchasing it, I googled a lot about good lenses to get for a good start.
And... I ended up on this thread so first of all, thank you to all the users who gave their opinion and especially Terry Lee for starting this thread :)

It has been a wonderful ressource, I think I have read the whole thread several times.
For sure I was impressed by the video from Regis Hervagault and also the one that was posted just above by George Prada (love the mood of it).

I decided to go for some of the lenses that were top rated here :
I purchased the mighty Helios 44m 58mm f/2, a Pentacon 135mm f/2.8 MC and a third one that was not listed here, a Pentacon 28mm f/2.8 MC, looks like it is exactly the same serie as the 135mm 2.8.

It happened that I ended up using the 28mm most of the time for a wider field of view, so far it has been good (after cleaning it with the proper tools) but I can't really tell about the quality... however, what I can say is that it isn't really sharp at f/2.8. I think this lens really isn't exceptionnal.
Writing this message reminds me that I should make some real tests with it.
I also noticed some vignetting, have to test that too.
Since I am using it mostly for video and that, in the end, it will probably be watched on a website like Vimeo or Youtube, I can live with some chromatic aberrations and a lack of sharpness.

Maybe someone here had a try with the same lens, it was the same price as the 135mm, 28€(40$).

Thanks again for the great help :) Several of my friends at my film school are now getting ready to find M42 adapters for their cameras !

[Steve Oakley]

not all old glass is very good wide open. you'll find thats why some older glass costs as much as new glass, its got good wide open performance. modern glass is almost always much better wide open, however, stop 1-2 stops down and it should be fine. you might also find that going up one notch on the detail level will help too if you are at min.

[George Pada]

Originally Posted by Simon Larcher

Hello (My account was finally activated !)
I can't really tell about the quality... however, what I can say is that it isn't really sharp at f/2.8. I think this lens really isn't exceptionnal.
!

Simon,
My concern with vintage lenses is that they are not always so sharp like new lenses.
But anything that is sharp enough to shoot video is ok. For stills I use the tokina 11-16 and the canon 17-55 that came with the kit.
The main benefit that you get by using vintage lenses is that "lens personality". That includes color rendition, bokeh, sharpness etc..

The only vintage lens that I can shoot stills with is the helios 44-4m 58mm f2.
Good luck with your journey to digital cinematography with 100% analog lenses!

p.s. I'm really jealous of your pentagon 135mm! Is it the one with 15-blades aperture? I have used this one once but unfortunately I had to return it.. :-(

Cheers

[Joel Peregrine]

Hi Steve,

Originally Posted by Steve Oakley

not all old glass is very good wide open. you'll find thats why some older glass costs as much as new glass, its got good wide open performance. modern glass is almost always much better wide open, however, stop 1-2 stops down and it should be fine. you might also find that going up one notch on the detail level will help too if you are at min.

Great advice. You sacrifice a certain look by stopping down - losing heavy on the smooth bokeh and circular highlights - but the in-focus area sharpens up slightly closed down on just about all lenses. As you said - some more than others. "Sharp wide open" is the holy grail. To get it you either have to really do your research, pay a lot of money or get lucky with a better-than-average copy of a lens. The nice thing is that fast vintage lenses will only gain value, so buying them for testing is never going to be a bad thing. As long as you can make a slick ebay listing you'll always at least get your money back - sometimes make a profit if you bought something that was undervalued or poorly represented. I just got done testing a Tomioka-made Rikenon. I've always heard they've got a unique look. I tested it 5.6, 4, 2.8, 2 and 1.4. Its a beautiful lens and does have a nice look, but I found the Olympus 50 1.4 (high serial number versions) and the earliest Pentax 50 1.4's to be sharper wide open. .

[Luke Gates]

Originally Posted by George Pada

Simon,
My concern with vintage lenses is that they are not always so sharp like new lenses.
But anything that is sharp enough to shoot video is ok. For stills I use the tokina 11-16 and the canon 17-55 that came with the kit.
The main benefit that you get by using vintage lenses is that "lens personality". That includes color rendition, bokeh, sharpness etc..

The only vintage lens that I can shoot stills with is the helios 44-4m 58mm f2.
Good luck with your journey to digital cinematography with 100% analog lenses!


Cheers

This might be because you aren't finding the right lenses. For example, Pentax makes so many different lenses with the same numbers on them it will make your head spin. They make the 135mm f2.5, but there is the takumar bayonet version, takumar bayonet super multi coated, and the smc pentax-m. The first two are garbage while the smc m mount is a gem. It's sharp even wide open. Also look into a smc pentax-m or pentax-a 50mm f1.4 which is also VERY sharp even wide open. People earlier suggested the super multi coated tak 50mm 1.4 but that lens has a dreamy sharp but not sharp look to it if that makes sense. The pentax-m or a is where its at though

[Mike Gorski]

I just discovered this thread and much like many others have previously posted, Thanks! This thread has been a nice web info tail to come across.

I wanted to post to rekindle the thread, maybe those who were previously posting so feverishly have fallen off the radar, but those who have a stake in this area of DSLR cinematography, definitely post. It helps, I'm sure the next person who falls upon this thread because they're stoked at the very concept of adapting modern DLSR bodies to use vintage glass will be even more pumped. Anyhow..

I moved to the DSLR video route (60D) for many reasons but the biggest is flexibility of over image control even with all the hoops. Owned a HMC40 and XH-A1. I'm researching old glass and looking for good long distance primes or small focal ranges that are reserved on the higher end... Reason being is that I'll be shooting water sports and need the reach. Instead of investing in expensive high end L Glass I like the look of the older stuff.

If anyone has any thoughts or good experiences with any specific lens please post. Its greatly greatly appreciated! Cheers!

[John Wiley]

Hi Mike,

I'm shooting surfing and also currently looking for a longer vintage lens. Currently I'm shooting with a Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 with a 2x converter, and while i'm happy with the results (you can check some of my surf videos out here: Deltoid Productions/SURF on Vimeo, most of which were shot with this combo), I do find that the focus throw is a little too short to be able to get consistanly accurate focus over long distances.

I'm currently trawling eBay waiting on something like a Nikon 300mm f/4 MF to come up at a good price, hoping that it will give me the nice, precise, smooth manual focus feeling I'm looking for.

[Kren Barnes]

What's up Mike... Out of all the manual lenses i've collected for our 60D's (see my last post for the list) , i've gotten rid of everything except 2. My Nikkor 50 1.4 and Helios 44 i've kept since they are quite handy for the wedding work we do. Given that business is well, we've upgraded to more conventional lenses.

As for your specific need shooting outdoors, i believe the Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f3.5 (for nikon) is a great budget zoom lens and will serve you well. With the crop factor it is actually 105- 315 mm. It was a great lens for us, specially with its macro capabilities, but with the slow aperture,we were limited to using it only on outdoor shoots.

Kren

[Mike Gorski]

Hey thanks for the replies! Super stoked on the feed back and will check out the suggestions/ do some homework. Glad business is going good, after reading this whole thread I realized I saved some money by not buying old canon glass at a garage sale. I'm going to also look into some of the shorter focal length primes.

Thanks again, I'll check in later!

[Mark Von Lanken]

It's great to see the updates to this old, but valuable thread. I started down the vintage lens road almost two years ago and today I still use many vintage lenes but not exclusively on my 60Ds.

The vintage lenses that I use the most are:
Zeiss Planar T 50mm 1.4
Zeiss Planar T 85mm 1.4
Vivitar Series 1 70-210 3.5
Nikon 35mm 1.4

I upgraded the Series 1 70-210 for the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS. I still like the colors better on the Series 1, but the Canon is a little faster and the image stabilization is amazning, but it should be since it's price is about $2200 more!

The Nikon 35mm 1.4 is the newest addition. I have a Sigma 20mm 1.8, Nikon 24mm 2.8 and Zeiss 50mm 1.4, but I was looking for something in between the 24mm and 50mm at f/1.4. The Nikon 35mm 1.4 is just what I was looking for. I considered the Sigma 30mm 1.4, but it will not work with the full frame sensor cameras, in case I decide to go that route.

Vintage lenses really helped me justify the cost of experimenting with DSLRs. Most of our weddings are exclusively DSLR and we still use many vintage lenses today.

Comparing the cost of fast L glass primes, going the vintage lens route has saved me thousands of dollars.